Set Me Free

Chapter 19. Blurred Lines

A/N: Thanks for all the support, as always!

---I-AM-A-LINE---

"The loss of one is the loss of many."

---I-AM-A-LINE---

She had no regrets; she had done a good thing, hadn't she? It was because of her that they were all still alive, so why were they looking at her like that?

Kirishima had been quick to recognise the hail of arrows for what they were and wasted no time discarding her human form for her Draconian one. She spread her vast crimson wings like a shield and held steady as hundreds of fire-tipped arrows bounced off her body and onto the ground.

Those that were out of her reach had thankfully been protected by her guildmates as best they could, and though some would wake up with a few extra wounds, at least they could still wake up.

Having realised what she had done, Kirishima was quick to retract her wings, and what she found made something in her heart hurt. While there were shared looks of relief, she saw other emotions there too.

To make matters worse, many who had regained consciousness among the other guild members let out shocked screams and scrambled among themselves to gain some distance. A few of her own guildmates also took a few steps back.

Kirishima tried to take a step forwards, but that resulted in apprehensive looks. If only she could speak. She had ruined her clothes, and if history repeated itself, that would present a whole new set of problems if she transformed back now.

Before she could find an answer to her own question, her sharp ears picked up the sounds of heavy armour and bowstrings—more arrows! Once again, the sky lit up with flames, and she answered with a fiery call of her own, incinerating the next wave before they had the chance to reach their peak.

"What the fuck are you waiting for, stupid lizard?" Suddenly a familiar blast rang through her ears, followed by a weight on her back: "The archers, blow them away! The rest of you get off your asses and run!"

Kirishima felt the weight on her heart lift and quickly took to the sky, the stares of her guildmates drilling into her as she took off with their leader. Bakugou had vouched for her, speaking more with his actions than words as he soared across the field mounted on her back.

Having gained some altitude, the pair were able to see clearly what they were up against, and what they saw was not good. Hundreds of soldiers, all armed to the teeth. Rows and rows of archers were at the forefront, and at least two dozen catapults were loaded with chains and oil-flamed boulders.

Insistent knocking on the back of her neck alerted her to the yelling of her blonde companion, and Kirishima was quick to take the hint, drawing in a deep breath. She unleashed herself on the archers, breaking their closely knit formation and forcing them to retreat uphill. It wasn't much, but it would buy time for their companions to gain some much-needed distance. Or so they thought.

"Bakugou, we can't possibly move all of these people!" Kirishima glanced down and saw Midoriya running below her with impressive speed, his skin crackling brightly.

"What the shit are you doing here, Deku!?" Bakugou hollered, and the redhead was beginning to wonder if making ears bleed was another ability of his.

"We can't just leave them here!"

The blonde ground his teeth, and Kirishima could feel his palms crackle against her scales before she heard him sigh deeply.

"Alright, you bleeding heart fucks, get ready for a fight!"

---I-AM-A-LINE---

They were outnumbered but not outsmarted. Todoroki's quick thinking evened out the playing field, forming a canyon of sorts with his ice and narrowing the enemy's options of attack. However, their numbers were still far greater, and for every enemy that they took down, another would instantly take their place.

Then came the boulders, each flaming with an unquenchable blaze, the thick fluid coating them resistant to even Todoroki's ice, and even Kirishima found herself having to dart and weave across the sky in fear of being pinned down. The force behind the projectiles was frightening, and to make matters worse, the devices that were being used to launch them were large and made of iron. Her fire was completely useless on them, leaving all but a brandish.

The longer this took, the more of their friends would get hurt, and she would be damned if she was going to let that happen while she was there. She had sworn to be Bakugou's shield, and that meant the things that he wanted to protect were hers to protect too.

In no time at all, the green fields turned black, and any signs of life were crushed beneath the weight of the many. It had truly become a battlefield, and like many before it, it became stained with blood.

It rose with the wind, but there was nothing uplifting about the scent that wafted through her nose. Kirishima could almost taste it as she traced it back to its source, her heart sinking at the sight.

'Momo!' She spotted the raven-haired woman at her worst as she was being carried away by Iida, unconscious and heavily bleeding from her stomach.

The shift was sudden, and once it had begun, it spiralled out of control. Suddenly, one after another, her friends were being forced back, and more were returning to the backlines heavily injured.

Kirishima wasn't left to wonder what had happened for very long as a frighteningly familiar scarlet glow shone on the battlefield. The final battalion was like nothing she had ever seen and instantly became something she wished she could erase.

Dragon-scale armour made from a crimson dragon's scales She wanted to believe that it wasn't true, but it was glaring her right in the face and beating down those she had come to care for. She had been a fool; what did she think had happened to all those scales that they had collected from her over the years? But why were they here?

Bakugou's rage became insatiable at the sight before him, and he would be damned if he didn't repay every drop of blood that his guild had shed today. However, he wasn't alone in his fury. The blonde felt the subtle change in his draconic companion as the muscles rippled beneath him, and he knew her eyes burned like his.

"If we do this," Bakugou said, placing his palm against the scales of her neck, "people are going to die. Can you handle that?"

Kirishima paused in thought. She knew what he was asking: could she kill these people to save her own? She was burned and bruised, but she had never killed anyone before. She was a hunter by nature, but she had never done so for sport, and she only ever took what she needed.

Was there really a choice? If she didn't do it, then more of her friends would be injured, and eventually, they would kill themselves. However, those people, no matter which side they were on, were still people. They had families and lives of their own; could she take that away? Did she have the right?

The choice was soon made for her as the catapults took aim with deadly accuracy, a metal boulder reaching the apex and shattering outwards in a linked chain nett. With barely any time to react, Kirishima narrowly avoided the painful collision.

Oh, how she wished she hadn't.

It had missed her, but it landed with deadly force on the battlefield, and Kirishima felt sick to her stomach as she witnessed the damage. At least a dozen of the very men and women they had been fighting to protect in the first place had been crushed under the weight.

There was so much blood and she felt so disoriented that she could no longer tell the difference between the ringing in her ears and the cries of the battlefield. Kirishima caught sight of a second steel ball being loaded into the catapults, and she saw red.

---I-AM-A-LINE---